Food as Medicine – Part 2

So if you have an autoimmune disease or even any of these symptoms – joint pain, other pain, eczema, allergies, gas, regularity, brain fog, low energy, and more, you need to know about the Autoimmune Paleo Protocol elimination diet. It’s possible that a damaged gut and the wrong foods could be causing your symptoms.

So here’s the basics for how it works. I’ll introduce some other things to think about in my next post. But basically, you eliminate a lot of food that is known to cause issues with people, make sure the foods you are eating are nutrient rich and then you pay attention to your body. As you heal and your symptoms go away you start reintroducing the foods one at a time and see if the foods trigger symptoms.

So here is what you eliminate:

Grains

Dairy

Legumes

Refined sugars

Modern vegetable oils

Processed foods

Eggs

Nuts

Seeds

Soy

Nightshades (a category of vegetables)

NSAIDS

Alcohol

Sweeteners like sweet n low and Stevia

This is what you add:

Water – make sure you are getting enough water, it helps the body work properly

Quality fats – fats are good! Make sure you get enough, it’s key to surviving the diet. If you don’t you’ll be hungry

Fruits – but limit to 20 grams of fructose per day

Probiotic foods – ferments, kombucha (it’s a yummy beverage!)

Foods with glycine – bone broth is a big source, you can also buy powdered glycine and add it to almost anything.

Some people are even sensitive to foods that are allowable on the diet. If you do the diet for a while and are not seeing clear results, you might still be eating something that bothers you. For instance, some people unknowingly take drugs that have Soy and Wheat in them. If they are sensitive to those things, they’ll have a problem. Other people aren’t paying attention to labels on food. Others still just might have a food sensitivity to almost anything. I’ve heard of people being sensitive to apples, pineapple, citrus, onion, garlic, etc. If that happens, you really need to keep a food and symptom log. It helps you identify what you were eating before you had a reaction and after a while you’ll start seeing a pattern. You can also have some food sensitivity testing done that can help you pinpoint sensitivities that are harder to identify.

I know this sounds daunting, I even went through a period of mourning for the loss of food and experience with food. But remember, the goal isn’t to eat this way for the rest of your life. The goal is healing your gut. For some people, that can take a couple months, for others it can take years. Remember if you’ve been sick for a long time, it can take longer for your body to heal. The amazing thing though, is that the body is so resilient. In most cases, if we give the body a fighting chance and stop adding junk to it, our bodies will start to heal. And then once you start feeling better, you can start making introductions and see what still bothers you or what you can now tolerate. The hope here – some people heal so well they return to a normal (yet healthy) diet.

So you’re thinking you’d like to try this but are feeling overwhelmed on where to start. Stay tuned for Part 3 and I’ll give you some basics that will head you in the right direction.